For a beginner, it is important to value the exam related requirements and accordingly, should choose books and study-material for preparation.

To have clear understanding and conceptual clarity, you should always go by the syllabus and should pick up relevant resource for an effective preparation.

Big examination like Civil Service Examination offer huge opportunity for many publishers to come out with tailored content to meet the demands as per syllabus.

Be clear, Civil Service Examination is such exam-plan where no single guide-book can replace standard text-books and newspapers from your resource.

The rationales to support this statement are;

first, format of the guides is kept such which caters to the needs of wide range of aspirants with an aim to attract larger number of buyers.

Many a time, authors try to cover the State PCS syllabus with IAS to reach out to a wider gamut of readers.

Second, to cover more and more topics, the endeavor of author is to incorporate important aspects of any given topic and at times basic information is left out which is absolutely necessary for a fresher to have conceptual clarity.

Third, these guides are published much before the examination notification is published.

So, looking at the dynamic nature of many constituents listed in syllabus, how-so-ever the popular book may be, it would be of limited use as for current events and contemporary developments, you need to look at other resources.

Fourth, at times, coverage of not all constituents are of adequate depth and classy.

Fifth, quality sometimes become an issue when it comes to sub-topics and mind-it UPSC is known to dig these sub-topics intelligently and fires questions around these.

No doubt, some of the guide-books published by reputed publishers offer relevant content as per syllabus and provide compilation of information in an easy to read format.

But, depending solely on these is inviting trouble as the pattern and design of questions being asked by UPSC in Preliminary as well as in Main Examination is such that you will find it difficult to answer with limited information these books contain.